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How to Use ChatGPT for Research and Essays

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For better or worse, OpenAI’s ChatGPT has become a big part of our lives. It’s become integral to gathering information, researching topics, and creating written works. And frankly, not using it might put you at a disadvantage academically.

However, this AI is not flawless; there is a method to use it to help with your essays and research. Using it the right way will help you avoid plagiarism issues or inaccurate information. Here, we’ll show you how to use ChatGPT to write an essay ethically, so it comes out as a quality, factual, and original piece.

1. Draw Your Outline Without ChatGPT

Assuming you already have an idea for your project, the first thing you should do before you hop on ChatGPT’s website is to prepare your thesis and outline without using AI. It’s a vital step to making sure the core of your essay actually comes from you.

If you use ChatGPT to prompt an outline for you, it could promote idea laziness, and you will find ChatGPT’s suggestions may have replaced the ones you could have produced on your own. So, get a piece of paper or a blank word processor page and create an outline for your essay.

Also, ChatGPT will avoid controversial topics—even in an outline. Therefore, you might find yourself with an outline missing vital pieces of historical sections if you rely on it. This bias is one of the major problems with OpenAI’s ChatGPT .

2. Prompt ChatGPT to Draw a Parallel Outline

Before you begin this section, if this is your first time using ChatGPT, you should read our guide on how to use ChatGPT . It will help you with creating an account and defining its capabilities. Once that’s out of the way, you can move on to the next step.

Now that you have an original outline, it doesn’t matter how basic it looks; you can use ChatGPT to create another outline. Craft a prompt with this template:

ChatGPT’s result is far more detailed than our outline. Here, you should adopt the parts of ChatGPT’s outline you would like to integrate into your own. Combine the best of the two and flesh out an outline that will guide you best as you write.

3. Create a ChatGPT Prompt for Each Section

Now that you have an outline with sections, you can begin to hack away at it section by section. Start with your introduction, where you will include your thesis statement. Ask ChatGPT to create multiple thesis statements on your idea, and choose the one that best encapsulates the major point you’re trying to communicate in your essay.

You can do something similar for all the other sections as well. Tell the AI to generate written pieces on your section topics. Don’t forget to add that it communicates the point in the tone you want. In most cases, essays should sound academic. Therefore, our prompt for each section looked like this:

Do not just copy and paste the information it generates; the next step is a vital second part of this methodology.

4. Confirm the Information With a Reputable Source

As you begin to write, you must check if the information you’re getting from ChatGPT is indeed correct. You must do this because ChatGPT occasionally hallucinates , coming up with its own facts and making up sources when you ask it to direct you to where it got its information. In some cases, it blatantly refuses to tell you at all where it got its data.

The free version of ChatGPT is not actively connected to the internet and cannot fetch information after September 2021. If you need this functionality, then it could be time to upgrade to ChatGPT Plus —especially if this is a tool you will be using heavily for work or school.

The bottom line is that you should use a reputable source (such as a book from an authority or an official website) to support every important statement you put down. You can also learn how to use Google to fact-check information .

5. Use ChatGPT for Examples and Breakdowns

It’s counterproductive to write about ideas that you don’t even understand yourself. When you reach a part of your essay that you don’t properly understand, you should go to ChatGPT and have it broken down for you.

That’s really the one thing you can count on ChatGPT to do in this process. It has good skill in crafting useful examples and explaining complicated ideas in a form you can easily understand. A popular way of phrasing a prompt to make ChatGPT explain something complicated is adding “explain like I’m five” to your prompt.

Here we used ChatGPT to break down hip and elbow dysplasia conditions in a way that is easier to understand. And it used analogies like jigsaw puzzles to paint a clearer image of what it might look like.

6. Write the Essay Yourself

As we’ve stated earlier, under no condition should you ask ChatGPT to write your whole essay for you. Not only is that lazy and deceitful, but it could also open you up to plagiarism and submitting incorrect information.

Ensure that every line in your essay is typed with your hands. Besides, if you’re writing an academic essay where you must cite sources, you will still need to corroborate all the points you’ve made with a corresponding authority. That means you’ll have to go and fact-check everything ChatGPT has written and find a corroborating source.

This could even take more time than just writing it yourself because the AI could have hallucinated some of its facts, leading you on a wild goose chase as you try to find a citation for something that doesn’t exist.

Lastly, ChatGPT doesn’t match the nuanced knowledge of a human professional in heavily specialized fields or journals that need up-to-date information. Reading a book or article by an expert, internalizing it, and writing it in your own words will give you far better results than relying on ChatGPT.

7. Polish the Style and Citation With ChatGPT

After writing, you can paste portions of your essay and ask ChatGPT to shorten, lengthen, or optimize the style. ChatGPT is good at mimicking popular styles, and you can use that to your advantage. If you want your writing to sound a little more professional, it can help rephrase it.

If you’re having trouble with citation styles and how to integrate them into your essay, you can present your essay to ChatGPT, give it your sources, and ask it to weld them together for you.

ChatGPT Is a Tool, Not a Solution

You can’t “ChatGPT” away academic or professional work; you must use it the same way you would use a tool. Take a calculator, for instance; it doesn’t replace the mathematician but improves the mathematician. You should use ChatGPT the same way a mathematician will use a calculator: for the boring, repetitive, rote work.

Let the ideas and story come from you and your experiences. And if you want to keep using ChatGPT as a student, make sure you know what you shouldn't do.

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How ChatGPT (and other AI chatbots) can help you write an essay

ChatGPT  is capable of doing many different things very well, with one of the biggest standout features being its ability to compose all sorts of text within seconds, including songs, poems, bedtime stories, and essays . 

The chatbot's writing abilities are not only fun to experiment with, but can help provide assistance with everyday tasks. Whether you are a student, a working professional, or just getting stuff done, we constantly take time out of our day to compose emails, texts, posts, and more. ChatGPT can help you claim some of that time back by helping you brainstorm and then compose any text you need. 

How to use ChatGPT to write: Code | Excel formulas | Resumes  | Cover letters  

Contrary to popular belief, ChatGPT can do much more than just write an essay for you from scratch (which would be considered plagiarism). A more useful way to use the chatbot is to have it guide your writing process. 

Below, we show you how to use ChatGPT to do both the writing and assisting, as well as some other helpful writing tips. 

How ChatGPT can help you write an essay

If you are looking to use ChatGPT to support or replace your writing, here are five different techniques to explore. 

It is also worth noting before you get started that other AI chatbots can output the same results as ChatGPT or are even better, depending on your needs.

Also: The best AI chatbots of 2024: ChatGPT and alternatives

For example,  Copilot  has access to the internet, and as a result, it can source its answers from recent information and current events. Copilot also includes footnotes linking back to the original source for all of its responses, making the chatbot a more valuable tool if you're writing a paper on a more recent event, or if you want to verify your sources.

Regardless of which AI chatbot you pick, you can use the tips below to get the most out of your prompts and from AI assistance.

1. Use ChatGPT to generate essay ideas

Before you can even get started writing an essay, you need to flesh out the idea. When professors assign essays, they generally give students a prompt that gives them leeway for their own self-expression and analysis. 

As a result, students have the task of finding the angle to approach the essay on their own. If you have written an essay recently, you know that finding the angle is often the trickiest part -- and this is where ChatGPT can help. 

Also: ChatGPT vs. Copilot: Which AI chatbot is better for you?

All you need to do is input the assignment topic, include as much detail as you'd like -- such as what you're thinking about covering -- and let ChatGPT do the rest. For example, based on a paper prompt I had in college, I asked:

Can you help me come up with a topic idea for this assignment, "You will write a research paper or case study on a leadership topic of your choice." I would like it to include Blake and Mouton's Managerial Leadership Grid, and possibly a historical figure. 

Also: I'm a ChatGPT pro but this quick course taught me new tricks, and you can take it for free

Within seconds, the chatbot produced a response that provided me with the title of the essay, options of historical figures I could focus my article on, and insight on what information I could include in my paper, with specific examples of a case study I could use. 

2. Use the chatbot to create an outline

Once you have a solid topic, it's time to start brainstorming what you actually want to include in the essay. To facilitate the writing process, I always create an outline, including all the different points I want to touch upon in my essay. However, the outline-writing process is usually tedious. 

With ChatGPT, all you have to do is ask it to write the outline for you. 

Also: Thanks to my 5 favorite AI tools, I'm working smarter now

Using the topic that ChatGPT helped me generate in step one, I asked the chatbot to write me an outline by saying: 

Can you create an outline for a paper, "Examining the Leadership Style of Winston Churchill through Blake and Mouton's Managerial Leadership Grid."

After a couple of seconds, the chatbot produced a holistic outline divided into seven different sections, with three different points under each section. 

This outline is thorough and can be condensed for a shorter essay or elaborated on for a longer paper. If you don't like something or want to tweak the outline further, you can do so either manually or with more instructions to ChatGPT. 

As mentioned before, since Copilot is connected to the internet, if you use Copilot to produce the outline, it will even include links and sources throughout, further expediting your essay-writing process. 

3. Use ChatGPT to find sources

Now that you know exactly what you want to write, it's time to find reputable sources to get your information. If you don't know where to start, you can just ask ChatGPT. 

Also: How to make ChatGPT provide sources and citations

All you need to do is ask the AI to find sources for your essay topic. For example, I asked the following: 

Can you help me find sources for a paper, "Examining the Leadership Style of Winston Churchill through Blake and Mouton's Managerial Leadership Grid."

The chatbot output seven sources, with a bullet point for each that explained what the source was and why it could be useful. 

Also:   How to use ChatGPT to make charts and tables

The one caveat you will want to be aware of when using ChatGPT for sources is that it does not have access to information after 2021, so it will not be able to suggest the freshest sources. If you want up-to-date information, you can always use Copilot. 

Another perk of using Copilot is that it automatically links to sources in its answers. 

4. Use ChatGPT to write an essay

It is worth noting that if you take the text directly from the chatbot and submit it, your work could be considered a form of plagiarism since it is not your original work. As with any information taken from another source, text generated by an AI should be clearly identified and credited in your work.

Also: ChatGPT will now remember its past conversations with you (if you want it to)

In most educational institutions, the penalties for plagiarism are severe, ranging from a failing grade to expulsion from the school. A better use of ChatGPT's writing features would be to use it to create a sample essay to guide your writing. 

If you still want ChatGPT to create an essay from scratch, enter the topic and the desired length, and then watch what it generates. For example, I input the following text: 

Can you write a five-paragraph essay on the topic, "Examining the Leadership Style of Winston Churchill through Blake and Mouton's Managerial Leadership Grid."

Within seconds, the chatbot gave the exact output I required: a coherent, five-paragraph essay on the topic. You could then use that text to guide your own writing. 

Also: ChatGPT vs. Microsoft Copilot vs. Gemini: Which is the best AI chatbot?

At this point, it's worth remembering how tools like ChatGPT work : they put words together in a form that they think is statistically valid, but they don't know if what they are saying is true or accurate. 

As a result, the output you receive might include invented facts, details, or other oddities. The output might be a useful starting point for your own work, but don't expect it to be entirely accurate, and always double-check the content. 

5. Use ChatGPT to co-edit your essay

Once you've written your own essay, you can use ChatGPT's advanced writing capabilities to edit the piece for you. 

You can simply tell the chatbot what you want it to edit. For example, I asked ChatGPT to edit our five-paragraph essay for structure and grammar, but other options could have included flow, tone, and more. 

Also: AI meets AR as ChatGPT is now available on the Apple Vision Pro

Once you ask the tool to edit your essay, it will prompt you to paste your text into the chatbot. ChatGPT will then output your essay with corrections made. This feature is particularly useful because ChatGPT edits your essay more thoroughly than a basic proofreading tool, as it goes beyond simply checking spelling. 

You can also co-edit with the chatbot, asking it to take a look at a specific paragraph or sentence, and asking it to rewrite or fix the text for clarity. Personally, I find this feature very helpful. 

How I test an AI chatbot's coding ability - and you can too

What is artificial general intelligence, if you want a career in ai, start with these 5 steps.

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How to Use ChatGPT to Write Essays That Impress

Step 1: Use ChatGPT to Find and Refine Essay Topics

• Log into the service and type the following prompt into ChatGPT:

• As you can see, ChatGPT gave several good ideas for our essay. If you want to refine the idea further, you can ask the chatbot to cut out some parts of the idea and replace them. Or, you can ask for more context in certain parts. Example – “Expand more on topic number 5 and what it means.”

Step 2: Ask ChatGPT to Construct an Outline

• With the same chat open, type out “ Give me an essay outline for <selected topic>. Make sure to keep it structured as I’ll use it to write my essay .” In this case, I will use topic number 2 since it aligns with what I had in mind.

• As you can see above, we now have a structured outline for our essay. We can use this to write our essay or have ChatGPT do that job. Nonetheless, it’s a good starting point. As always, you can have the AI chatbot cut out parts of the outline or specifically add new ones depending on your requirement.

Step 3: Get ChatGPT to Cite Sources for Your Essay

Even though we have the idea and the outline, we will need to do our research for proof supporting our essay. Thankfully, ChatGPT can be of some help here. Since the chatbot is adept at moderate research, users can get a general idea of where to look for gathering information. Let’s begin doing that.

• Let’s begin asking ChatGPT for sources. With the same chat open, type in the following prompt:

• Now we have a list of 10 sources we can reference from. However, you can also see that ChatGPT mentions the year 2021 in some of them. Therefore, it’s best to use these websites but navigate to the latest pages pertaining to your essay for research. This applies to every topic, so always do it. Also, chatbots like ChatGPT have a habit of hallucinating and making up information, so do be careful.

Step 4: Have ChatGPT Write the Essay

• In the same chat, type the following prompt – “With the topic and outline available to you, generate a 700-word essay. Make sure to keep it structured and concise yet informational. Also, keep in mind my target audience is <Insert target audience> so cater to that accordingly.”
• In the middle of the essay, ChatGPT might stop and not answer. Simply type “ Continue ,” and it will finish the rest of the essay.

Step 5: Edit the Essay with ChatGPT

No matter if you have used ChatGPT to draft a complete essay or have written one yourself, you can use this step to make ChatGPT your co-editor and grammar checker. While your essay might need an initial look from a human, you can definitely use the bot to hash out the tone and add little details.

• Either open up the same chat or have your essay already in the clipboard. With that done, type out the following prompt:

Step 6: Export the Essay for Submission

However, for those who want to export the essay into a more aesthetic format, we have just the thing for you. There is no shortage of best ChatGPT Chrome extensions on the internet right now. We have one such selection linked in our list that can export selective chats onto beautiful image formats if you want to show off your essay. Check it out and let us know how you liked it.

Bonus: ChatGPT and AI Apps to Write Essays

1. writesonic.

Ryter is another helpful AI writing assistant that not only helps with essays but all types of articles. The service is powered by a language model that gives it intelligence. Rytr comes with 40+ different use cases and 20+ writing tones for all types of written material. For those who don’t want to stick to English, it even comes with support for 30+ languages.

Upanishad Sharma

Combining his love for Literature and Tech, Upanishad dived into the world of technology journalism with fire. Now he writes about anything and everything while keeping a keen eye on his first love of gaming. Often found chronically walking around the office.

Im student i want to become financially independent woman in life so I want esay essay write

I am housewife and I want easy essay I want to change my life my husband was job less and I want to work online part time job plz help I am enter pass

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How to Get ChatGPT to Write an Essay: Prompts, Outlines, & More

Last Updated: June 2, 2024 Fact Checked

Getting ChatGPT to Write the Essay

Using ai to help you write, expert interview.

This article was written by Bryce Warwick, JD and by wikiHow staff writer, Nicole Levine, MFA . Bryce Warwick is currently the President of Warwick Strategies, an organization based in the San Francisco Bay Area offering premium, personalized private tutoring for the GMAT, LSAT and GRE. Bryce has a JD from the George Washington University Law School. This article has been fact-checked, ensuring the accuracy of any cited facts and confirming the authority of its sources. This article has been viewed 49,545 times.

Are you curious about using ChatGPT to write an essay? While most instructors have tools that make it easy to detect AI-written essays, there are ways you can use OpenAI's ChatGPT to write papers without worrying about plagiarism or getting caught. In addition to writing essays for you, ChatGPT can also help you come up with topics, write outlines, find sources, check your grammar, and even format your citations. This wikiHow article will teach you the best ways to use ChatGPT to write essays, including helpful example prompts that will generate impressive papers.

Things You Should Know

• To have ChatGPT write an essay, tell it your topic, word count, type of essay, and facts or viewpoints to include.
• ChatGPT is also useful for generating essay topics, writing outlines, and checking grammar.
• Because ChatGPT can make mistakes and trigger AI-detection alarms, it's better to use AI to assist with writing than have it do the writing.

• Before using the OpenAI's ChatGPT to write your essay, make sure you understand your instructor's policies on AI tools. Using ChatGPT may be against the rules, and it's easy for instructors to detect AI-written essays.
• While you can use ChatGPT to write a polished-looking essay, there are drawbacks. Most importantly, ChatGPT cannot verify facts or provide references. This means that essays created by ChatGPT may contain made-up facts and biased content. [1] X Research source It's best to use ChatGPT for inspiration and examples instead of having it write the essay for you.

• The topic you want to write about.
• Essay length, such as word or page count. Whether you're writing an essay for a class, college application, or even a cover letter , you'll want to tell ChatGPT how much to write.
• Other assignment details, such as type of essay (e.g., personal, book report, etc.) and points to mention.
• If you're writing an argumentative or persuasive essay , know the stance you want to take so ChatGPT can argue your point.
• If you have notes on the topic that you want to include, you can also provide those to ChatGPT.
• When you plan an essay, think of a thesis, a topic sentence, a body paragraph, and the examples you expect to present in each paragraph.
• It can be like an outline and not an extensive sentence-by-sentence structure. It should be a good overview of how the points relate.

• "Write a 2000-word college essay that covers different approaches to gun violence prevention in the United States. Include facts about gun laws and give ideas on how to improve them."
• This prompt not only tells ChatGPT the topic, length, and grade level, but also that the essay is personal. ChatGPT will write the essay in the first-person point of view.
• "Write a 4-page college application essay about an obstacle I have overcome. I am applying to the Geography program and want to be a cartographer. The obstacle is that I have dyslexia. Explain that I have always loved maps, and that having dyslexia makes me better at making them."

Tyrone Showers

Be specific when using ChatGPT. Clear and concise prompts outlining your exact needs help ChatGPT tailor its response. Specify the desired outcome (e.g., creative writing, informative summary, functional resume), any length constraints (word or character count), and the preferred emotional tone (formal, humorous, etc.)

• In our essay about gun control, ChatGPT did not mention school shootings. If we want to discuss this topic in the essay, we can use the prompt, "Discuss school shootings in the essay."
• Let's say we review our college entrance essay and realize that we forgot to mention that we grew up without parents. Add to the essay by saying, "Mention that my parents died when I was young."
• In the Israel-Palestine essay, ChatGPT explored two options for peace: A 2-state solution and a bi-state solution. If you'd rather the essay focus on a single option, ask ChatGPT to remove one. For example, "Change my essay so that it focuses on a bi-state solution."

Pay close attention to the content ChatGPT generates. If you use ChatGPT often, you'll start noticing its patterns, like its tendency to begin articles with phrases like "in today's digital world." Once you spot patterns, you can refine your prompts to steer ChatGPT in a better direction and avoid repetitive content.

• "Give me ideas for an essay about the Israel-Palestine conflict."
• "Ideas for a persuasive essay about a current event."
• "Give me a list of argumentative essay topics about COVID-19 for a Political Science 101 class."

• "Create an outline for an argumentative essay called "The Impact of COVID-19 on the Economy."
• "Write an outline for an essay about positive uses of AI chatbots in schools."
• "Create an outline for a short 2-page essay on disinformation in the 2016 election."

• "Find peer-reviewed sources for advances in using MRNA vaccines for cancer."
• "Give me a list of sources from academic journals about Black feminism in the movie Black Panther."
• "Give me sources for an essay on current efforts to ban children's books in US libraries."

• "Write a 4-page college paper about how global warming is changing the automotive industry in the United States."
• "Write a 750-word personal college entrance essay about how my experience with homelessness as a child has made me more resilient."
• You can even refer to the outline you created with ChatGPT, as the AI bot can reference up to 3000 words from the current conversation. For example: "Write a 1000 word argumentative essay called 'The Impact of COVID-19 on the United States Economy' using the outline you provided. Argue that the government should take more action to support businesses affected by the pandemic."

• One way to do this is to paste a list of the sources you've used, including URLs, book titles, authors, pages, publishers, and other details, into ChatGPT along with the instruction "Create an MLA Works Cited page for these sources."
• You can also ask ChatGPT to provide a list of sources, and then build a Works Cited or References page that includes those sources. You can then replace sources you didn't use with the sources you did use.

Expert Q&A

• Because it's easy for teachers, hiring managers, and college admissions offices to spot AI-written essays, it's best to use your ChatGPT-written essay as a guide to write your own essay. Using the structure and ideas from ChatGPT, write an essay in the same format, but using your own words. Thanks Helpful 0 Not Helpful 0
• Always double-check the facts in your essay, and make sure facts are backed up with legitimate sources. Thanks Helpful 0 Not Helpful 0
• If you see an error that says ChatGPT is at capacity , wait a few moments and try again. Thanks Helpful 0 Not Helpful 0

• Using ChatGPT to write or assist with your essay may be against your instructor's rules. Make sure you understand the consequences of using ChatGPT to write or assist with your essay. Thanks Helpful 1 Not Helpful 0
• ChatGPT-written essays may include factual inaccuracies, outdated information, and inadequate detail. [3] X Research source Thanks Helpful 0 Not Helpful 0

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Thanks for reading our article! If you’d like to learn more about completing school assignments, check out our in-depth interview with Bryce Warwick, JD .

• ↑ https://help.openai.com/en/articles/6783457-what-is-chatgpt
• ↑ https://platform.openai.com/examples/default-essay-outline
• ↑ https://www.ipl.org/div/chatgpt/

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How to cite ChatGPT

Use discount code STYLEBLOG15 for 15% off APA Style print products with free shipping in the United States.

We, the APA Style team, are not robots. We can all pass a CAPTCHA test , and we know our roles in a Turing test . And, like so many nonrobot human beings this year, we’ve spent a fair amount of time reading, learning, and thinking about issues related to large language models, artificial intelligence (AI), AI-generated text, and specifically ChatGPT . We’ve also been gathering opinions and feedback about the use and citation of ChatGPT. Thank you to everyone who has contributed and shared ideas, opinions, research, and feedback.

In this post, I discuss situations where students and researchers use ChatGPT to create text and to facilitate their research, not to write the full text of their paper or manuscript. We know instructors have differing opinions about how or even whether students should use ChatGPT, and we’ll be continuing to collect feedback about instructor and student questions. As always, defer to instructor guidelines when writing student papers. For more about guidelines and policies about student and author use of ChatGPT, see the last section of this post.

Quoting or reproducing the text created by ChatGPT in your paper

If you’ve used ChatGPT or other AI tools in your research, describe how you used the tool in your Method section or in a comparable section of your paper. For literature reviews or other types of essays or response or reaction papers, you might describe how you used the tool in your introduction. In your text, provide the prompt you used and then any portion of the relevant text that was generated in response.

Unfortunately, the results of a ChatGPT “chat” are not retrievable by other readers, and although nonretrievable data or quotations in APA Style papers are usually cited as personal communications , with ChatGPT-generated text there is no person communicating. Quoting ChatGPT’s text from a chat session is therefore more like sharing an algorithm’s output; thus, credit the author of the algorithm with a reference list entry and the corresponding in-text citation.

When prompted with “Is the left brain right brain divide real or a metaphor?” the ChatGPT-generated text indicated that although the two brain hemispheres are somewhat specialized, “the notation that people can be characterized as ‘left-brained’ or ‘right-brained’ is considered to be an oversimplification and a popular myth” (OpenAI, 2023).

OpenAI. (2023). ChatGPT (Mar 14 version) [Large language model]. https://chat.openai.com/chat

You may also put the full text of long responses from ChatGPT in an appendix of your paper or in online supplemental materials, so readers have access to the exact text that was generated. It is particularly important to document the exact text created because ChatGPT will generate a unique response in each chat session, even if given the same prompt. If you create appendices or supplemental materials, remember that each should be called out at least once in the body of your APA Style paper.

When given a follow-up prompt of “What is a more accurate representation?” the ChatGPT-generated text indicated that “different brain regions work together to support various cognitive processes” and “the functional specialization of different regions can change in response to experience and environmental factors” (OpenAI, 2023; see Appendix A for the full transcript).

Creating a reference to ChatGPT or other AI models and software

The in-text citations and references above are adapted from the reference template for software in Section 10.10 of the Publication Manual (American Psychological Association, 2020, Chapter 10). Although here we focus on ChatGPT, because these guidelines are based on the software template, they can be adapted to note the use of other large language models (e.g., Bard), algorithms, and similar software.

The reference and in-text citations for ChatGPT are formatted as follows:

• Parenthetical citation: (OpenAI, 2023)
• Narrative citation: OpenAI (2023)

Let’s break that reference down and look at the four elements (author, date, title, and source):

Author: The author of the model is OpenAI.

Date: The date is the year of the version you used. Following the template in Section 10.10, you need to include only the year, not the exact date. The version number provides the specific date information a reader might need.

Title: The name of the model is “ChatGPT,” so that serves as the title and is italicized in your reference, as shown in the template. Although OpenAI labels unique iterations (i.e., ChatGPT-3, ChatGPT-4), they are using “ChatGPT” as the general name of the model, with updates identified with version numbers.

The version number is included after the title in parentheses. The format for the version number in ChatGPT references includes the date because that is how OpenAI is labeling the versions. Different large language models or software might use different version numbering; use the version number in the format the author or publisher provides, which may be a numbering system (e.g., Version 2.0) or other methods.

Bracketed text is used in references for additional descriptions when they are needed to help a reader understand what’s being cited. References for a number of common sources, such as journal articles and books, do not include bracketed descriptions, but things outside of the typical peer-reviewed system often do. In the case of a reference for ChatGPT, provide the descriptor “Large language model” in square brackets. OpenAI describes ChatGPT-4 as a “large multimodal model,” so that description may be provided instead if you are using ChatGPT-4. Later versions and software or models from other companies may need different descriptions, based on how the publishers describe the model. The goal of the bracketed text is to briefly describe the kind of model to your reader.

Source: When the publisher name and the author name are the same, do not repeat the publisher name in the source element of the reference, and move directly to the URL. This is the case for ChatGPT. The URL for ChatGPT is https://chat.openai.com/chat . For other models or products for which you may create a reference, use the URL that links as directly as possible to the source (i.e., the page where you can access the model, not the publisher’s homepage).

Other questions about citing ChatGPT

You may have noticed the confidence with which ChatGPT described the ideas of brain lateralization and how the brain operates, without citing any sources. I asked for a list of sources to support those claims and ChatGPT provided five references—four of which I was able to find online. The fifth does not seem to be a real article; the digital object identifier given for that reference belongs to a different article, and I was not able to find any article with the authors, date, title, and source details that ChatGPT provided. Authors using ChatGPT or similar AI tools for research should consider making this scrutiny of the primary sources a standard process. If the sources are real, accurate, and relevant, it may be better to read those original sources to learn from that research and paraphrase or quote from those articles, as applicable, than to use the model’s interpretation of them.

We’ve also received a number of other questions about ChatGPT. Should students be allowed to use it? What guidelines should instructors create for students using AI? Does using AI-generated text constitute plagiarism? Should authors who use ChatGPT credit ChatGPT or OpenAI in their byline? What are the copyright implications ?

On these questions, researchers, editors, instructors, and others are actively debating and creating parameters and guidelines. Many of you have sent us feedback, and we encourage you to continue to do so in the comments below. We will also study the policies and procedures being established by instructors, publishers, and academic institutions, with a goal of creating guidelines that reflect the many real-world applications of AI-generated text.

For questions about manuscript byline credit, plagiarism, and related ChatGPT and AI topics, the APA Style team is seeking the recommendations of APA Journals editors. APA Style guidelines based on those recommendations will be posted on this blog and on the APA Style site later this year.

Update: APA Journals has published policies on the use of generative AI in scholarly materials .

We, the APA Style team humans, appreciate your patience as we navigate these unique challenges and new ways of thinking about how authors, researchers, and students learn, write, and work with new technologies.

American Psychological Association. (2020). Publication manual of the American Psychological Association (7th ed.). https://doi.org/10.1037/0000165-000

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Should I Use ChatGPT to Write My Essays?

Everything high school and college students need to know about using — and not using — ChatGPT for writing essays.

Jessica A. Kent

ChatGPT is one of the most buzzworthy technologies today.

In addition to other generative artificial intelligence (AI) models, it is expected to change the world. In academia, students and professors are preparing for the ways that ChatGPT will shape education, and especially how it will impact a fundamental element of any course: the academic essay.

Students can use ChatGPT to generate full essays based on a few simple prompts. But can AI actually produce high quality work, or is the technology just not there yet to deliver on its promise? Students may also be asking themselves if they should use AI to write their essays for them and what they might be losing out on if they did.

AI is here to stay, and it can either be a help or a hindrance depending on how you use it. Read on to become better informed about what ChatGPT can and can’t do, how to use it responsibly to support your academic assignments, and the benefits of writing your own essays.

What is Generative AI?

Artificial intelligence isn’t a twenty-first century invention. Beginning in the 1950s, data scientists started programming computers to solve problems and understand spoken language. AI’s capabilities grew as computer speeds increased and today we use AI for data analysis, finding patterns, and providing insights on the data it collects.

But why the sudden popularity in recent applications like ChatGPT? This new generation of AI goes further than just data analysis. Instead, generative AI creates new content. It does this by analyzing large amounts of data — GPT-3 was trained on 45 terabytes of data, or a quarter of the Library of Congress — and then generating new content based on the patterns it sees in the original data.

It’s like the predictive text feature on your phone; as you start typing a new message, predictive text makes suggestions of what should come next based on data from past conversations. Similarly, ChatGPT creates new text based on past data. With the right prompts, ChatGPT can write marketing content, code, business forecasts, and even entire academic essays on any subject within seconds.

But is generative AI as revolutionary as people think it is, or is it lacking in real intelligence?

The Drawbacks of Generative AI

It seems simple. You’ve been assigned an essay to write for class. You go to ChatGPT and ask it to write a five-paragraph academic essay on the topic you’ve been assigned. You wait a few seconds and it generates the essay for you!

But ChatGPT is still in its early stages of development, and that essay is likely not as accurate or well-written as you’d expect it to be. Be aware of the drawbacks of having ChatGPT complete your assignments.

It’s not intelligence, it’s statistics

One of the misconceptions about AI is that it has a degree of human intelligence. However, its intelligence is actually statistical analysis, as it can only generate “original” content based on the patterns it sees in already existing data and work.

It “hallucinates”

Generative AI models often provide false information — so much so that there’s a term for it: “AI hallucination.” OpenAI even has a warning on its home screen , saying that “ChatGPT may produce inaccurate information about people, places, or facts.” This may be due to gaps in its data, or because it lacks the ability to verify what it’s generating. 

It doesn’t do research  

If you ask ChatGPT to find and cite sources for you, it will do so, but they could be inaccurate or even made up.

This is because AI doesn’t know how to look for relevant research that can be applied to your thesis. Instead, it generates content based on past content, so if a number of papers cite certain sources, it will generate new content that sounds like it’s a credible source — except it likely may not be.

There are data privacy concerns

When you input your data into a public generative AI model like ChatGPT, where does that data go and who has access to it? 

Prompting ChatGPT with original research should be a cause for concern — especially if you’re inputting study participants’ personal information into the third-party, public application. 

JPMorgan has restricted use of ChatGPT due to privacy concerns, Italy temporarily blocked ChatGPT in March 2023 after a data breach, and Security Intelligence advises that “if [a user’s] notes include sensitive data … it enters the chatbot library. The user no longer has control over the information.”

It is important to be aware of these issues and take steps to ensure that you’re using the technology responsibly and ethically. 

It skirts the plagiarism issue

AI creates content by drawing on a large library of information that’s already been created, but is it plagiarizing? Could there be instances where ChatGPT “borrows” from previous work and places it into your work without citing it? Schools and universities today are wrestling with this question of what’s plagiarism and what’s not when it comes to AI-generated work.

To demonstrate this, one Elon University professor gave his class an assignment: Ask ChatGPT to write an essay for you, and then grade it yourself. 

“Many students expressed shock and dismay upon learning the AI could fabricate bogus information,” he writes, adding that he expected some essays to contain errors, but all of them did. 

His students were disappointed that “major tech companies had pushed out AI technology without ensuring that the general population understands its drawbacks” and were concerned about how many embraced such a flawed tool.

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How to Use AI as a Tool to Support Your Work

As more students are discovering, generative AI models like ChatGPT just aren’t as advanced or intelligent as they may believe. While AI may be a poor option for writing your essay, it can be a great tool to support your work.

Generate ideas for essays

Have ChatGPT help you come up with ideas for essays. For example, input specific prompts, such as, “Please give me five ideas for essays I can write on topics related to WWII,” or “Please give me five ideas for essays I can write comparing characters in twentieth century novels.” Then, use what it provides as a starting point for your original research.

Generate outlines

You can also use ChatGPT to help you create an outline for an essay. Ask it, “Can you create an outline for a five paragraph essay based on the following topic” and it will create an outline with an introduction, body paragraphs, conclusion, and a suggested thesis statement. Then, you can expand upon the outline with your own research and original thought.

Generate titles for your essays

Titles should draw a reader into your essay, yet they’re often hard to get right. Have ChatGPT help you by prompting it with, “Can you suggest five titles that would be good for a college essay about [topic]?”

The Benefits of Writing Your Essays Yourself

Asking a robot to write your essays for you may seem like an easy way to get ahead in your studies or save some time on assignments. But, outsourcing your work to ChatGPT can negatively impact not just your grades, but your ability to communicate and think critically as well. It’s always the best approach to write your essays yourself.

Create your own ideas

Writing an essay yourself means that you’re developing your own thoughts, opinions, and questions about the subject matter, then testing, proving, and defending those thoughts. 

When you complete school and start your career, projects aren’t simply about getting a good grade or checking a box, but can instead affect the company you’re working for — or even impact society. Being able to think for yourself is necessary to create change and not just cross work off your to-do list.

Building a foundation of original thinking and ideas now will help you carve your unique career path in the future.

Develop your critical thinking and analysis skills

In order to test or examine your opinions or questions about a subject matter, you need to analyze a problem or text, and then use your critical thinking skills to determine the argument you want to make to support your thesis. Critical thinking and analysis skills aren’t just necessary in school — they’re skills you’ll apply throughout your career and your life.

Improve your research skills

Writing your own essays will train you in how to conduct research, including where to find sources, how to determine if they’re credible, and their relevance in supporting or refuting your argument. Knowing how to do research is another key skill required throughout a wide variety of professional fields.

Learn to be a great communicator

Writing an essay involves communicating an idea clearly to your audience, structuring an argument that a reader can follow, and making a conclusion that challenges them to think differently about a subject. Effective and clear communication is necessary in every industry.

Be impacted by what you’re learning about : 

Engaging with the topic, conducting your own research, and developing original arguments allows you to really learn about a subject you may not have encountered before. Maybe a simple essay assignment around a work of literature, historical time period, or scientific study will spark a passion that can lead you to a new major or career.

Resources to Improve Your Essay Writing Skills

While there are many rewards to writing your essays yourself, the act of writing an essay can still be challenging, and the process may come easier for some students than others. But essay writing is a skill that you can hone, and students at Harvard Summer School have access to a number of on-campus and online resources to assist them.

Students can start with the Harvard Summer School Writing Center , where writing tutors can offer you help and guidance on any writing assignment in one-on-one meetings. Tutors can help you strengthen your argument, clarify your ideas, improve the essay’s structure, and lead you through revisions. 

The Harvard libraries are a great place to conduct your research, and its librarians can help you define your essay topic, plan and execute a research strategy, and locate sources. 

Finally, review the “ The Harvard Guide to Using Sources ,” which can guide you on what to cite in your essay and how to do it. Be sure to review the “Tips For Avoiding Plagiarism” on the “ Resources to Support Academic Integrity ” webpage as well to help ensure your success.

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The Future of AI in the Classroom

ChatGPT and other generative AI models are here to stay, so it’s worthwhile to learn how you can leverage the technology responsibly and wisely so that it can be a tool to support your academic pursuits. However, nothing can replace the experience and achievement gained from communicating your own ideas and research in your own academic essays.

About the Author

Jessica A. Kent is a freelance writer based in Boston, Mass. and a Harvard Extension School alum. Her digital marketing content has been featured on Fast Company, Forbes, Nasdaq, and other industry websites; her essays and short stories have been featured in North American Review, Emerson Review, Writer’s Bone, and others.

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• Writing Tips

How to Write Your Essay Using ChatGPT

• 5-minute read
• 2nd May 2023

It’s tempting, isn’t it? You’ve read about and probably also witnessed how quickly ChatGPT can knock up text, seemingly in any genre or style and of any length, in less time than it takes you to make a cup of tea. However, getting ChatGPT to write your essay for you would be plagiarism . Universities and colleges are alive to the issue, and you may face serious academic penalties if you’re found to have used AI in that way.

So that’s that, right? Not necessarily.

This post is not about how to get ChatGPT to write your essay . It’s about how you can use the tool to help yourself write an essay .

What Is ChatGPT?

Let’s start with the basics. ChatGPT is one of several chatbots that can answer questions in a conversational style, as if the answer were coming from a human. It provides answers based on information it receives in development and in response to prompts you provide.

In that respect, like a human, ChatGPT is limited by the information it has. Where it lacks the information, it has a tendency to fill the gaps regardless . This action is dangerous if you’re relying on the accuracy of the information, and it’s another good reason you should not get ChatGPT to write your essay for you.

How Can You Use ChatGPT to Help With Your Essay?

Forget about the much talked-about writing skills of ChatGPT – writing is your thing here. Instead, think of ChatGPT as your assistant. Here are some ideas for how you can make it work for you.

Essay Prompts

If your task is to come up with your own essay topic but you find yourself staring at a blank page, you can use ChatGPT for inspiration. Your prompt could look something like this:

ChatGPT can offer several ideas. The choice of which one to write about (and you may, of course, still come up with one of your own) will be up to you, based on what interests you and the topic’s potential for in-depth analysis.

Essay Outlines

Having decided on your essay topic – or perhaps you’ve already been given one by your instructor – you may be struggling to figure out how to structure the essay. You can use ChatGPT to suggest an outline. Your prompt can be along these lines:

Just as you should not use ChatGPT to write an essay for you, you should not use it to research one – that’s your job.

If, however, you’re struggling to understand a particular extract, you can ask ChatGPT to summarize it or explain it in simpler terms.

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That said, you can’t rely on ChatGPT to be factually accurate in the information it provides, even when you think the information would be in its database, as we discovered in another post. Indeed, when we asked ChatGPT whether we should fact-check its information, the response was:

An appropriate use of ChatGPT for research would be to ask for academic resources for further reading on a particular topic. The advantage of doing this is that, in going on to locate and read the suggested resources, you will have checked that they exist and that the content is relevant and accurately set out in your essay.

Instead of researching the topic as a whole, you could use ChatGPT to generate suggestions for the occasional snippet of information, like this:

Before deciding which of its suggestions – if any – to include, you should ask ChatGPT for the source of the fact or statistic so you can check it and provide the necessary citation.

Referencing

Even reading the word above has probably made you groan. As if writing the essay isn’t hard enough, you then have to not only list all the sources you used, but also make sure that you’ve formatted them in a particular style. Here’s where you can use ChatGPT. We have a separate post dealing specifically with this topic, but in brief, you can ask something like this:

Where information is missing, as in the example above, ChatGPT will likely fill in the gaps. In such cases, you’ll have to ensure that the information it fills in is correct.

Proofreading

After finishing the writing and referencing, you’d be well advised to proofread your work, but you’re not always the best person to do so – you’d be tired and would likely read only what you expect to see. At least as a first step, you can copy and paste your essay into ChatGPT and ask it something like this:

You’ve got the message that you can’t just ask ChatGPT to write your essay, right? But in some areas, ChatGPT can help you write your essay, providing, as with any tool, you use it carefully and are alert to the risks.

We should point out that universities and colleges have different attitudes toward using AI – including whether you need to cite its use in your reference list – so always check what’s acceptable.

After using ChatGPT to help with your work, you can always ask our experts to look over it to check your references and/or improve your grammar, spelling, and tone. We’re available 24/7, and you can even try our services for free .

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• CAREER COLUMN
• 08 April 2024

Three ways ChatGPT helps me in my academic writing

• Dritjon Gruda 0

Dritjon Gruda is an invited associate professor of organizational behavior at the Universidade Católica Portuguesa in Lisbon, the Católica Porto Business School and the Research Centre in Management and Economics.

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Confession time: I use generative artificial intelligence (AI). Despite the debate over whether chatbots are positive or negative forces in academia, I use these tools almost daily to refine the phrasing in papers that I’ve written, and to seek an alternative assessment of work I’ve been asked to evaluate, as either a reviewer or an editor. AI even helped me to refine this article.

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doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-024-01042-3

This is an article from the Nature Careers Community, a place for Nature readers to share their professional experiences and advice. Guest posts are encouraged .

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How to Ethically Use ChatGPT to Write an Essay

You’re here because you want to know how to get ChatGPT to write an essay for you, and I’m here to say you shouldn’t do that outright—but there are ways you can get ChatGPT or other AI services to help with your paper. To put it plainly, ChatGPT can absolutely write a paper for you, but you need to be careful that it matches up with the specific instructions your professor gave you and that it’s not going to get you in trouble for cheating. I won’t proselytize about how getting AI to write your essay is wrong and deprives you of the opportunity to learn, but I will warn you that there are pros and cons to doing it—and to avoid trouble, you may still have to do some work. 

If you want ChatGPT to write your whole essay…

If you’re in a time crunch and really want AI to produce a full paper, it can be done. You’ll enter the essay prompt into ChatGPT and give clear instructions. However, ChatGPT may say no to certain requests. For instance, I inputted, “Write me a 1,500-word essay on the role of aqueducts in ancient Rome’s success as an empire using six outside sources cited in MLA.” The AI refused, then told me it could write an outline and give me the six sources it used for my own research. It did that, which was helpful, but it did not write the whole paper as requested. 

I tried again, thinking maybe its aversion was to my request for an essay: “Write 1,500 words on the role of aqueducts in ancient Rome’s success as an empire using six outside sources cited in MLA.” The software told me doing that would be “too lengthy,” then regurgitated the outline and source suggestions from before. 

Ultimately, I had success working in chunks. I asked for a 100-word introduction to an essay on the topic and for ChatGPT to tell me its sources. Sure enough, I got the introduction, plus the sources it used. You could theoretically go chunk by chunk, asking the AI to create an intro, body paragraphs, and conclusion. You’ll still have to add in your citations manually, but it will give them to you. 

Don’t have ChatGPT write the whole paper, though

Here’s the thing: While you can find a workaround to get ChatGPT to write a whole paper, you’re already still going to be doing the work of adding in citations—and you could easily get busted. Teachers can use free software to detect AI in writing and some of them are even getting crafty, inserting unrelated prompts in white text to catch you copying and pasting the instructions into ChatGPT. For instance, if your professor wants an essay on the decline of local news funding over the last 10 years, they might add white text that says something like, “Include two sentences on Madonna’s impact on popular culture.” You might not notice that when you copy and paste it into ChatGPT and if you don’t read over the work the AI spits back out, you’ll turn in something that inexplicably references the Queen of Pop and your professor will know what you did right away. Even if your professor isn't using tricks like that (and a lot of them are, according to their own posts on social media), a quick scan of your work for words you wouldn't normally use could signal to them that it's time to run your paper through an AI checker.

How to use ChatGPT for help writing a school paper

Your best bet is still to write the paper yourself using ChatGPT’s help, which will still shave a lot of time off your researching and brainstorming process. Where AI really shines when it comes to essays is in creating outlines, as shown above with that Roman aqueducts example. While it wouldn’t generate the whole paper, ChatGPT did provide me with nine different subcategories for exploration, from “historical context of ancient Rome” to “agricultural expansion and economic growth” and “military advantage.” Each of those subcategories came with bullet points of what should be touched on in their associated paragraph, plus ChatGPT pointed out which sources could be used to gather the information. If I followed the outline to the T, I’d easily have a six- or seven-page paper and never have to brainstorm or labor over where I was going with it. Put simply, you should rely on ChatGPT for outlines if you’re struggling to come up with ideas or just don’t have the time to structure a whole paper. 

If you end up asking the software to write a few paragraphs, you can—and should —rewrite them. That will take a little time, yes, but rewriting the paragraphs in your own words will help you look less suspicious and will also teach you about what you’re writing about—and that can only benefit you if your teacher asks a follow-up question or puts some of the content on an upcoming test. 

In conclusion, can you make ChatGPT write an essay? Yes, if you’re patient. Should you make ChatGPT write an essay? No, you should not. 

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Anatomy of an AI Essay

How might you distinguish one from a human-composed counterpart? After analyzing dozens, Elizabeth Steere lists some key predictable features.

By  Elizabeth Steere

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Since OpenAI launched ChatGPT in 2022, educators have been grappling with the problem of how to recognize and address AI-generated writing. The host of AI-detection tools that have emerged over the past year vary greatly in their capabilities and reliability. For example, mere months after OpenAI launched its own AI detector, the company shut it down due to its low accuracy rate.

Understandably, students have expressed concerns over the possibility of their work receiving false positives as AI-generated content. Some institutions have disabled Turnitin’s AI-detection feature due to concerns over potential false allegations of AI plagiarism that may disproportionately affect English-language learners . At the same time, tools that rephrase AI writing—such as text spinners, text inflators or text “humanizers”—can effectively disguise AI-generated text from detection. There are even tools that mimic human typing to conceal AI use in a document’s metadata.

While the capabilities of large language models such as ChatGPT are impressive, they are also limited, as they strongly adhere to specific formulas and phrasing . Turnitin’s website explains that its AI-detection tool relies on the fact that “GPT-3 and ChatGPT tend to generate the next word in a sequence of words in a consistent and highly probable fashion.” I am not a computer programmer or statistician, but I have noticed certain attributes in text that point to the probable involvement of AI, and in February, I collected and quantified some of those characteristics in hopes to better recognize AI essays and to share those characteristics with students and other faculty members.

I asked ChatGPT 3.5 and the generative AI tool included in the free version of Grammarly each to generate more than 50 analytical essays on early American literature, using texts and prompts from classes I have taught over the past decade. I took note of the characteristics of AI essays that differentiated them from what I have come to expect from their human-composed counterparts. Here are some of the key features I noticed.

AI essays tend to get straight to the point. Human-written work often gradually leads up to its topic, offering personal anecdotes, definitions or rhetorical questions before getting to the topic at hand.

AI-generated essays are often list-like. They may feature numbered body paragraphs or multiple headings and subheadings.

The paragraphs of AI-generated essays also often begin with formulaic transitional phrases. As an example, here are the first words of each paragraph in one essay that ChatGPT produced:

• “In contrast”
• “Furthermore”
• “On the other hand”
• “In conclusion.”

Notably, AI-generated essays were far more likely than human-written essays to begin paragraphs with “Furthermore,” “Moreover” and “Overall.”

AI-generated work is often banal. It does not break new ground or demonstrate originality; its assertions sound familiar.

AI-generated text tends to remain in the third person. That’s the case even when asked a reader response–style question. For example, when I asked ChatGPT what it personally found intriguing, meaningful or resonant about one of Edgar Allan Poe’s poems, it produced six paragraphs, but the pronoun “I” was included only once. The rest of the text described the poem’s atmosphere, themes and use of language in dispassionate prose. Grammarly prefaced its answer with “I’m sorry, but I cannot have preferences as I am an AI-powered assistant and do not have emotions or personal opinions,” followed by similarly clinical observations about the text.

AI-produced text tends to discuss “readers” being “challenged” to “confront” ideologies or being “invited” to “reflect” on key topics. In contrast, I have found that human-written text tends to focus on hypothetically what “the reader” might “see,” “feel” or “learn.”

AI-generated essays are often confidently wrong. Human writing is more prone to hedging, using phrases like “I think,” “I feel,” “this might mean …” or “this could be a symbol of …” and so on.

AI-generated essays are often repetitive. An essay that ChatGPT produced on the setting of Rebecca Harding Davis’s short story “Life in the Iron Mills” contained the following assertions among its five brief paragraphs: “The setting serves as a powerful symbol,” “the industrial town itself serves as a central aspect of the setting,” “the roar of furnaces serve as a constant reminder of the relentless pace of industrial production,” “the setting serves as a catalyst for the characters’ struggles and aspirations,” “the setting serves as a microcosm of the larger societal issues of the time,” and “the setting … serves as a powerful symbol of the dehumanizing effects of industrialization.”

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AI writing is often hyperbolic or overreaching. The quotes above describe a “powerful symbol,” for example. AI essays frequently describe even the most mundane topics as “groundbreaking,” “vital,” “esteemed,” “invaluable,” “indelible,” “essential,” “poignant” or “profound.”

AI-produced texts frequently use metaphors, sometimes awkwardly. ChatGPT produced several essays that compared writing to “weaving” a “rich” or “intricate tapestry” or “painting” a “vivid picture.”

AI-generated essays tend to overexplain. They often use appositives to define people or terms, as in “Margaret Fuller, a pioneering feminist and transcendentalist thinker, explored themes such as individualism, self-reliance and the search for meaning in her writings …”

AI-generated academic writing often employs certain verbs. They include “delve,” “shed light,” “highlight,” “illuminate,” “underscore,” “showcase,” “embody,” “transcend,” “navigate,” “foster,” “grapple,” “strive,” “intertwine,” “espouse” and “endeavor.”

AI-generated essays tend to end with a sweeping broad-scale statement. They talk about “the human condition,” “American society,” “the search for meaning” or “the resilience of the human spirit.” Texts are often described as a “testament to” variations on these concepts.

AI-generated writing often invents sources. ChatGPT can compose a “research paper” using MLA-style in-text parenthetical citations and Works Cited entries that look correct and convincing, but the supposed sources are often nonexistent. In my experiment, ChatGPT referenced a purported article titled “Poe, ‘The Fall of the House of Usher,’ and the Gothic’s Creation of the Unconscious,” which it claimed was published in PMLA , vol. 96, no. 5, 1981, pp. 900–908. The author cited was an actual Poe scholar, but this particular article does not appear on his CV, and while volume 96, number 5 of PMLA did appear in 1981, the pages cited in that issue of PMLA actually span two articles: one on Frankenstein and one on lyric poetry.

AI-generated essays include hallucinations. Ted Chiang’s article on this phenomenon offers a useful explanation for why large language models such as ChatGPT generate fabricated facts and incorrect assertions. My AI-generated essays included references to nonexistent events, characters and quotes. For example, ChatGPT attributed the dubious quote “Half invoked, half spontaneous, full of ill-concealed enthusiasms, her wild heart lay out there” to a lesser-known short story by Herman Melville, yet nothing resembling that quote appears in the actual text. More hallucinations were evident when AI was generating text about less canonical or more recently published literary texts.

This is not an exhaustive list, and I know that AI-generated text in other formats or relating to other fields probably features different patterns and tendencies . I also used only very basic prompts and did not delineate many specific parameters for the output beyond the topic and the format of an essay.

It is also important to remember that the attributes I’ve described are not exclusive to AI-generated texts. In fact, I noticed that the phrase “It is important to … [note/understand/consider]” was a frequent sentence starter in AI-generated work, but, as evidenced in the previous sentence, humans use these constructions, too. After all, large language models train on human-generated text.

And none of these characteristics alone definitively point to a text having been created by AI. Unless a text begins with the phrase “As an AI language model,” it can be difficult to say whether it was entirely or partially generated by AI. Thus, if the nature of a student submission suggests AI involvement, my first course of action is always to reach out to the student themselves for more information. I try to bear in mind that this is a new technology for both students and instructors, and we are all still working to adapt accordingly.

Students may have received mixed messages on what degree or type of AI use is considered acceptable. Since AI is also now integrated into tools their institutions or instructors have encouraged them to use—such as Grammarly , Microsoft Word or Google Docs —the boundaries of how they should use technology to augment human writing may be especially unclear. Students may turn to AI because they lack confidence in their own writing abilities. Ultimately, however, I hope that by discussing the limits and the predictability of AI-generated prose, we can encourage them to embrace and celebrate their unique writerly voices.

Elizabeth Steere is a lecturer in English at the University of North Georgia.

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ChatGPT can write your essays, but should you use it?

Published on March 12, 2023

With the rising popularity of online writing tools, you may be wondering: can I use ChatGPT to write my essays? If you’ve never used the chatbot, it can generate several paragraphs of text within a matter of seconds. That’s certainly faster than any human can type, but there are many limitations to using it too. Here’s everything you need to know about how ChatGPT fares at writing essays and whether you should use it.

ChatGPT can write essays, but it isn't always the best choice as it suffers from a few technical limitations. Additionally, you may want to avoid using it if your work will be graded or judged in any capacity.

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Can ChatGPT write student essays?

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• Should you use ChatGPT to write an essay?

How to use ChatGPT to write an essay

Yes, ChatGPT can write you an essay as it has been trained on a wide range of text. However, there are some downsides to using it for that purpose. For one, it lacks logical reasoning and critical thinking, qualities that are critical to writing an essay.

Generally speaking, writing an essay involves researching the topic, structuring your thoughts in a way that makes logical sense, and writing it in a convincing manner. ChatGPT can help you with each of these stages separately. However, it cannot fully replace a human presenting their own knowledge and opinion in an essay.

As for the actual writing part, ChatGPT can indeed generate an essay that looks and sounds like a human wrote it. However, the output is usually verbose and a bit simplistic, making it stand out in a professional setting. There are ways around this, however, as we’ll discuss in a later section. Some may also argue it’s unethical to use AI-generated text in essays as it doesn’t represent your views and thoughts.

So can you use ChatGPT to write essays responsibly? Absolutely — you can use it to detect spelling and grammatical mistakes in your own text. Likewise, ChatGPT can help with brainstorming new ideas or finding key points and angles.

For example, I asked ChatGPT to provide some potential angles on an essay titled “The negative effects of social media on society”. It told me that I could discuss how social media impacts mental health, aids the spread of misinformation and enables echo chambers. Finally, I requested ChatGPT to provide an outline that takes those points into consideration, which gave me a starting point for the essay.

Yes, teachers and professors now have access to online tools that can detect AI-generated text. Chatbots like ChatGPT work by using a machine learning-based model to predict future words using statistical probability. Humans, on the other hand, tend to piece together words much more randomly. So with a little bit of knowledge about how ChatGPT works, it’s not hard to weed out AI-generated text.

OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, already has an AI classifier that detects whether or not a certain piece of text was written by a computer. Likewise, GPTZero provides professors with plagiarism scores for text. It also highlights sentences that it suspects have been written by an AI. These tools become increasingly accurate as the length of the text increases, so it’s harder to evade detection if you’re using ChatGPT to write longer essays.

Should I use ChatGPT to write an essay?

Generally speaking, you should not use ChatGPT to write an essay for school for the simple reason that you cannot pass off someone else’s work as yours. Moreover, many educational institutions have strict policies against plagiarism. Using ChatGPT to write an essay may be viewed as a breach of academic integrity. Some boards, including New York City’s public schools, have explicitly banned ChatGPT on student networks and devices for this very reason.

If you writing a research paper, you’ll also need to properly cite your sources. And as you may already know, ChatGPT cannot provide citations or links to external sources as it doesn’t have access to the internet. In fact, that’s one of the major differences between ChatGPT and Bing Chat — the latter provides sources for factual statements. Unfortunately, the latter’s Creative only includes a handful of sources — not enough to use in a professional piece of literature.

Without citations, you also cannot guarantee the accuracy of ChatGPT’s responses. That’s likely not a problem if you’re writing an essay on a well-known concept. However, the chatbot can quickly go off the rails when it’s writing about obscure topics.

ChatGPT’s underlying GPT-3 language model was only trained on a limited number of text samples. That likely didn’t include organic chemistry, regional laws, and philosophical debates to name a few. In other words, it might not fare well in a liberal arts setting. ChatGPT will rarely turn you down if you force it to write about something it doesn’t know much about, but it will likely respond with fictional or made-up information.

If you want ChatGPT to write a high-quality essay, you’ll need to provide a clear input prompt. If you provide a single keyword, like “global warming”, you’ll get a generic output. To avoid this, you can offer more specific terms and topics that you need to be included in your essay. For example, you could use the prompt “Write an essay on global warming and its effects on Australian wildfires” to add some context.

In case you’ve never used ChatGPT before, here’s a step-by-step guide on how to use it:

• Go to the ChatGPT website .
• Click Sign up and create a new account with your email address.
• Once logged in, you’ll see a text box at the bottom of the page. This is where you enter your prompts.
• From this point, you can ask ChatGPT to write an essay on just about any subject you can think of. Remember to be as specific as possible. If you need to include certain ideas, specify them in the input prompt.

With longer essays, you might run into ChatGPT’s hidden character limit before it can generate the whole text. If that happens, simply ask the chatbot to continue from where it left off. Alternatively, you can ask ChatGPT to write an outline for your essay before generating it one section at a time.

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ChatGPT for essay

Like any lazy student, I want to use ChatGPT to "HELP" me write my essay. I will change the wording so they cant see its an ai that wrote it, but does it "copyright"? Am I safe to use it in English class?

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Ieee spectrum, follow ieee spectrum, support ieee spectrum, enjoy more free content and benefits by creating an account, saving articles to read later requires an ieee spectrum account, the institute content is only available for members, downloading full pdf issues is exclusive for ieee members, downloading this e-book is exclusive for ieee members, access to spectrum 's digital edition is exclusive for ieee members, following topics is a feature exclusive for ieee members, adding your response to an article requires an ieee spectrum account, create an account to access more content and features on ieee spectrum , including the ability to save articles to read later, download spectrum collections, and participate in conversations with readers and editors. for more exclusive content and features, consider joining ieee ., join the world’s largest professional organization devoted to engineering and applied sciences and get access to all of spectrum’s articles, archives, pdf downloads, and other benefits. learn more about ieee →, join the world’s largest professional organization devoted to engineering and applied sciences and get access to this e-book plus all of ieee spectrum’s articles, archives, pdf downloads, and other benefits. learn more about ieee →, access thousands of articles — completely free, create an account and get exclusive content and features: save articles, download collections, and talk to tech insiders — all free for full access and benefits, join ieee as a paying member., how good is chatgpt at coding, really, study finds that while ai can be great, it also struggles due to training limitations.

This article is part of our exclusive IEEE Journal Watch series in partnership with IEEE Xplore.

Programmers have spent decades writing code for AI models , and now, in a full circle moment, AI is being used to write code. But how does an AI code generator compare to a human programmer?

A study published in the June issue of IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering evaluated the code produced by OpenAI’s ChatGPT in terms of functionality, complexity and security. The results show that ChatGPT has an extremely broad range of success when it comes to producing functional code—with a success rate ranging from anywhere as poor as 0.66 percent and as good as 89 percent—depending on the difficulty of the task, the programming language, and a number of other factors.

While in some cases the AI generator could produce better code than humans, the analysis also reveals some security concerns with AI-generated code.

Yutian Tang is a lecturer at the University of Glasgow who was involved in the study. He notes that AI-based code generation could provide some advantages in terms of enhancing productivity and automating software development tasks—but it’s important to understand the strengths and limitations of these models.

“By conducting a comprehensive analysis, we can uncover potential issues and limitations that arise in the ChatGPT-based code generation... [and] improve generation techniques,” Tang explains.

To explore these limitations in more detail, his team sought to test GPT-3.5’s ability to address 728 coding problems from the LeetCode testing platform in five programming languages: C, C++, Java, JavaScript, and Python .

“A reasonable hypothesis for why ChatGPT can do better with algorithm problems before 2021 is that these problems are frequently seen in the training dataset.” —Yutian Tang, University of Glasgow

Overall, ChatGPT was fairly good at solving problems in the different coding languages—but especially when attempting to solve coding problems that existed on LeetCode before 2021. For instance, it was able to produce functional code for easy, medium, and hard problems with success rates of about 89, 71, and 40 percent, respectively.

“However, when it comes to the algorithm problems after 2021, ChatGPT’s ability to generate functionally correct code is affected. It sometimes fails to understand the meaning of questions, even for easy level problems,” Tang notes.

For example, ChatGPT’s ability to produce functional code for “easy” coding problems dropped from 89 percent to 52 percent after 2021. And its ability to generate functional code for “hard” problems dropped from 40 percent to 0.66 percent after this time as well.

“A reasonable hypothesis for why ChatGPT can do better with algorithm problems before 2021 is that these problems are frequently seen in the training dataset,” Tang says.

Essentially, as coding evolves, ChatGPT has not been exposed yet to new problems and solutions. It lacks the critical thinking skills of a human and can only address problems it has previously encountered. This could explain why it is so much better at addressing older coding problems than newer ones.

“ChatGPT may generate incorrect code because it does not understand the meaning of algorithm problems.” —Yutian Tang, University of Glasgow

Interestingly, ChatGPT is able to generate code with smaller runtime and memory overheads than at least 50 percent of human solutions to the same LeetCode problems.

The researchers also explored the ability of ChatGPT to fix its own coding errors after receiving feedback from LeetCode. They randomly selected 50 coding scenarios where ChatGPT initially generated incorrect coding, either because it didn’t understand the content or problem at hand.

While ChatGPT was good at fixing compiling errors, it generally was not good at correcting its own mistakes.

“ChatGPT may generate incorrect code because it does not understand the meaning of algorithm problems, thus, this simple error feedback information is not enough,” Tang explains.

The researchers also found that ChatGPT-generated code did have a fair amount of vulnerabilities, such as a missing null test, but many of these were easily fixable. Their results also show that generated code in C was the most complex, followed by C++ and Python, which has a similar complexity to the human-written code.

Tangs says, based on these results, it’s important that developers using ChatGPT provide additional information to help ChatGPT better understand problems or avoid vulnerabilities.

“For example, when encountering more complex programming problems, developers can provide relevant knowledge as much as possible, and tell ChatGPT in the prompt which potential vulnerabilities to be aware of,” Tang says.

• What to Do When the Ghost in the Machine Is You ›
• How Coders Can Survive—and Thrive—in a ChatGPT World ›
• Coding Assistant - ChatGPT ›

Michelle Hampson is a freelance writer based in Halifax. She frequently contributes to Spectrum's Journal Watch coverage, which highlights newsworthy studies published in IEEE journals.

That's yesterday's news, try it with version 4o, it's free.

"struggles due to training limitations" isn't that EVERYONE's problem with EVERYTHING.

"I could be an awesome guitar playing, but I struggle due to training limitations."

"I could be a great Opera singer, but I struggle due to training limitations."

"I could be a great jockey, but I am 6'4"...." Ok, well maybe not everything.

ChatGPT sucks at coding because it's not an AI - it's a big ass word predictor.

I actually think the key here is writing good test suits to ensure AI does the right thing...

Here is the full argument: https://medium.com/@samuel.sperling/software-2-1-ai-is-coding-now-why-test-mastery-is-your-new-job-security-31a65e792f7f

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Food service robots just need the right ingredients, edith clarke: architect of modern power distribution, related stories, what to do when the ghost in the machine is you, chatgpt’s new upgrade teases ai’s multimodal future, chatgpt may be a better improviser than you.

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How writers are (and are not) incorporating ai into their process.

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Ask any writer and they’ll tell you: Writing is frustrating. From coming up with ideas to getting the words down, the whole process can turn you into a wreck. So when generative AI burst onto the scene with the release of ChatGPT, some writers and content creators in our network were intrigued by the possibility of speeding up their workflows.

Almost a year and a half since its release, ChatGPT isn’t quite capable of writing an engaging, unique piece of work from beginning to end just yet. (Ask any teacher who’s had to slog through rote, AI-generated student essays.) But more and more writers are dabbling in some AI-assisted writing.

Let’s walk through the writing process from start to finish and identify the parts where AI could come in handy, and where writers should still rely on good old-fashioned human intelligence.

Generating Ideas

“There is no such thing as a new idea,” Mark Twain once said . “It is impossible. We simply take a lot of old ideas and put them into a sort of mental kaleidoscope. We give them a turn and they make new and curious combinations.”

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Though he never lived to give ChatGPT a spin, Twain might as well have been talking about AI when he said “mental kaleidoscope.” (In fact, Mental Kaleidoscope could be a fun name for a writer-friendly AI model!)

Generative AI models are great at spitting out lots of ideas in a matter of seconds. Are they all good ideas? Of course not. But it’s like having a little writing partner on your shoulder, giving you some stuff to chew on during those moments of writer’s block.

No, AI isn’t a cure-all for writer’s block—many of the ideas aren’t completely original. But for now, generative AI is helping writers and content creators get past those dreaded moments when it’s just them and the blank page.

Occasionally, our writers will enter prompts in the brainstorming stage to identify key points and relevant links to sources. This helps to ensure we’re addressing all the main elements in some way (even if it means consciously leaving out certain aspects) and taking recent literature on the topic into consideration.

From tracking down stats to double-checking facts, plenty of people (including some writers in our network) use AI in the research process. Tools like ChatGPT are skilled at boiling down complex ideas into simple prose, especially if you use some creative prompting to limit the amount of jargon in the answer. So naturally, technical writers can use AI to fill in some blanks when they can’t track down necessary subject matter experts for a piece.

But AI isn’t perfect for research. For instance, if you ask ChatGPT to track down more specific stats around AI in the research process, it reminds you that its last update was in January 2022, before the release of ChatGPT itself. So if you’re looking for specific information from the last few years, the current version of ChatGPT may come up short.

Generative AI tools are also prone to hallucination. While this could improve, we’re still at a point where AI’s output must be fact-checked against other sources—because you never know when it’ll decide to be confidently incorrect .

While it might take some creative prompting, AI thrives when it comes to organizing information and giving it a logical flow. Is it remarkably creative? Not really, but it gets the job done. After all, outlines are for structure—you aren’t yet unpacking the meat of your argument.

Structuring a book calls for more complex outlines that AI can’t quite generate with logical consistency or creativity. But when it comes to outlining a short piece of writing, like a blog post, AI can be a valuable asset.

Tip: Don’t give up after a single prompt. Sometimes, you’ll need to prod AI a few times to deliver what you’re looking for (e.g., “more thorough!” “more interesting!” “more humor!”).

AI may be helpful for drafting little snippets of text—a subhead or maybe some alternative options for the title. But it’s hard to imagine many serious writers generating full text from ChatGPT anytime soon. Anyone who has spotted an AI-generated email or LinkedIn message can understand why: AI-generated text is boring . It gets a bit more fun when you tell ChatGPT to “write like Shakespeare,” but that’s just a playful exercise—no one is actually going to put out marketing copy that evokes Hamlet .

To paraphrase Hemingway, “Writing is rewriting.” Editing might be the most important part of the writing process, so is it worth handing the editing reins over to AI?

In some cases, maybe. You can send a written piece to ChatGPT in chunks and ask it to copyedit—though most word processors do that anyway. For shorter pieces, you can feed the entire thing to ChatGPT and have it observe the piece for logical inconsistencies. Or if you’re not happy with some phrasing, you can ask ChatGPT to offer alternatives while you edit.

But no one knows a piece better than the writer who wrote it originally. Much of the editing process is about “killing your darlings” and condensing. For now, generative AI isn’t great at spotting those moments where a piece might drag. Humans, with their lizard-brain need for novelty and entertainment, are still best for that.

Writing, like any craft, is a practice. While it might be tempting to outsource much of the process to AI, coming up with ideas, structuring and editing are valuable skills for any writer to learn. You’ll only learn by doing it, so maybe give it a try yourself first before letting ChatGPT take a crack.

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Using ChatGPT to Write a College Essay | Tips & Examples

Published on June 26, 2023 by Koen Driessen . Revised on December 8, 2023.

A good college essay helps to distinguish your application from those of other candidates. It conveys your experiences, values, and character traits and indicates why you would make a good addition to the university you’re applying to.

Your college essay should be your own work. However, AI tools like ChatGPT may be helpful during the preparation and revision stages of your writing.

You can also use the essay checker , so you don’t have to revise your writing yourself.

You can use these tools to:

• Brainstorm essay ideas
• Develop an outline
• Generate feedback

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Table of contents

Brainstorming ideas, developing an outline, generating feedback, limitations of using chatgpt, other interesting articles, frequently asked questions.

Your college essay topic should reveal something distinctive about your personality and have a unique angle.

Brainstorming a range of potential ideas is a good place to start. This can help to stimulate creative thinking and prompt self-reflection. It can also help you draw connections between seemingly unrelated experiences or ideas.

You can use ChatGPT to generate questions to help you brainstorm.

Example: Using ChatGPT to brainstorm ideas

• Generate 10 questions to help me brainstorm topics for my college admission essay.
• How has a particular life experience shaped your perspective on a specific issue or topic?
• What challenges or obstacles have you faced, and how have they influenced your personal growth?
• How has your involvement in extracurricular activities impacted your character development and contributed to your identity?
• In what ways have you demonstrated leadership skills and made a positive impact on your community?
• Describe a significant academic achievement or project that showcases your intellectual curiosity and passion.
• How have your cultural background and family values influenced your aspirations and goals for the future?
• Reflect on a time when you had to step outside of your comfort zone to achieve a meaningful outcome. What did you learn from this experience?
• How do you envision using your education to make a difference in the world or contribute to a specific field or industry?
• What do you believe sets you apart from other applicants, and how would your unique perspective enrich the college community?
• Discuss a book, artwork, or scientific discovery that has profoundly impacted your thinking and helped shape your intellectual interests.

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College admission essays don’t follow one predefined structure, so you can approach them creatively and incorporate storytelling techniques.

Two common approaches to structuring your essay are the narrative structure (a chronological narrative that shows your character development over time) and the vignette or montage structure (multiple scenes connected by a common topic or theme).

Regardless of the structure you choose, it’s important to establish a coherent narrative and ensure that your essay flows smoothly.

You can use ChatGPT as a source of inspiration and to generate potential ideas on how to structure your college essay . Do this by prompting the tool to create an outline using your chosen topic. You can make the prompt as specific as you like, mentioning any facts or viewpoints that should be incorporated into the output.

Examples: Using ChatGPT to generate an essay outline

• Provide a very short outline for a college admission essay. The essay will be about my experience working at an animal shelter. The essay will be 500 words long.
• Hook: Share a brief and engaging anecdote about your experience at the animal shelter.
• Thesis statement: Working at an animal shelter has been a transformative experience, teaching me valuable lessons about compassion, resilience, and community impact.
• Describe your first impressions and emotions upon starting work at the shelter.
• Discuss the challenges you encountered, such as the condition of the animals or the emotional toll of their situations.
• Highlight the relationships you formed with the animals and their impact on you.
• Discuss specific instances where you witnessed the transformative power of love and care on the animals’ well-being.
• Explore the collaborative efforts within the shelter community.
• Discuss how working with others led to positive outcomes and inspired you to make a difference.
• Reflect on how working at the shelter has shaped your character and values.
• Discuss the skills and lessons learned that are applicable beyond the shelter environment.
• Connect your experiences to your future goals and aspirations.
• Summarize the main points discussed in the essay.
• Reinforce the transformative nature of your experience and your commitment to making a positive impact in the future.

You can use ChatGPT to help revise your essay before submitting it to ensure that it’s of a high quality. However, ChatGPT cannot provide the same kind of informed feedback as a human, and it’s not able to adequately judge qualities such as vulnerability and authenticity. For this reason, it’s important to also ask for feedback from two to three people who have experience with college essays and who know you well.

Nevertheless, you can use ChatGPT to generate feedback on certain aspects, such as consistency of tone, clarity of structure, and grammar and punctuation. You can also use  Scribbr’s free paraphrasing tool to help vary the tone of your writing and Scribbr’s free grammar checker to ensure your text is free of grammar, spelling, and punctuation errors.

Alternatively, you can seek the advice of a human essay coach or editor. We recommend using Scribbr’s essay editing service .

Example: Using ChatGPT to get feedback

• Provide constructive feedback on how to improve the above essay with regard to appropriateness of tone, clarity of structure, and grammar and punctuation.
• The tone of the essay is generally appropriate, conveying a sense of personal growth and passion. However, consider injecting more enthusiasm and emotion into certain parts of the essay to make it more engaging and captivating.
• The overall structure of the essay is clear and follows a logical progression. However, it would benefit from a stronger introduction that hooks the reader and clearly outlines the main points to be discussed.
• Consider using clear topic sentences at the beginning of each paragraph to provide a preview of the main idea or argument that will be presented.
• Pay attention to subject-verb agreement and verb tenses throughout the essay to ensure consistency.
• Proofread the essay to eliminate any repetitive phrases or sentences.
• Check for the correct use of commas and other punctuation marks, ensuring they are used appropriately to enhance clarity and flow.

Additionally, here are a few constructive suggestions for improvement:

• Expand on the ways in which working at the animal shelter influenced your future aspirations and academic/professional pursuits.
• Be mindful of using diverse vocabulary and sentence structures to enhance the overall quality of the essay.

While ChatGPT can help you brainstorm, outline, and revise your essay, having it write your essay for you can negatively impact your application in several ways.

Unoriginal content

ChatGPT responses are based on a wide range of sources and sometimes resemble existing texts. Furthermore, they are not always unique, since other users may receive the same responses to similar prompts.

As the point of a college essay is to showcase your unique experiences and perspective and make you stand out from other candidates, having ChatGPT write your essay is not a good idea.

Formulaic style

ChatGPT outputs don’t reflect your personality, are highly formulaic, and contain many clichés (e.g., outputs often use hackneyed phrases like “burning desire,” “insatiable curiosity,” and “thirst for knowledge”).

Furthermore, ChatGPT outputs often “tell” rather than “show” (i.e., they state a fact instead of illustrating it using examples and vivid imagery).

Lack of personal insight

Human-written text tends to be more unpredictable and contain more creative language choices than AI-generated writing.

While the connections you make in your writing should not be nonsensical, drawing unique and unexpected connections between different experiences can help show character development and display your creativity and critical thinking skills.

ChatGPT can’t do this. Furthermore, it can’t express authentic emotion or vulnerability about specific memories that are, after all, your memories, not ChatGPT’s.

Risk of plagiarism

Passing off AI-generated text as your own work is usually considered plagiarism (or at least academic dishonesty ). AI detectors may be used to detect this offense.

It’s highly unlikely that a university will accept your application if you are caught submitting an AI-generated college essay.

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If you want more tips on using AI tools , understanding plagiarism , and citing sources , make sure to check out some of our other articles with explanations, examples, and formats.

• Citing ChatGPT
• Best grammar checker
• Best paraphrasing tool
• ChatGPT in your studies
• Is ChatGPT trustworthy?
• Types of plagiarism
• Self-plagiarism
• Avoiding plagiarism
• Academic integrity
• Best plagiarism checker

Citing sources

• Citation styles
• In-text citation
• Citation examples
• Annotated bibliography

No, having ChatGPT write your college essay can negatively impact your application in numerous ways. ChatGPT outputs are unoriginal and lack personal insight.

Furthermore, Passing off AI-generated text as your own work is considered academically dishonest . AI detectors may be used to detect this offense, and it’s highly unlikely that any university will accept you if you are caught submitting an AI-generated admission essay.

However, you can use ChatGPT to help write your college essay during the preparation and revision stages (e.g., for brainstorming ideas and generating feedback).

Yes, you use ChatGPT to help write your college essay by having it generate feedback on certain aspects of your work (consistency of tone, clarity of structure, etc.).

However, ChatGPT is not able to adequately judge qualities like vulnerability and authenticity. For this reason, it’s important to also ask for feedback from people who have experience with college essays and who know you well. Alternatively, you can get advice using Scribbr’s essay editing service .

Cite this Scribbr article

If you want to cite this source, you can copy and paste the citation or click the “Cite this Scribbr article” button to automatically add the citation to our free Citation Generator.

Driessen, K. (2023, December 08). Using ChatGPT to Write a College Essay | Tips & Examples. Scribbr. Retrieved July 10, 2024, from https://www.scribbr.com/ai-tools/chatgpt-college-essay/

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Microsoft quits OpenAI board seat as antitrust scrutiny of artificial intelligence pacts intensifies

FILE - OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, left, appears onstage with Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella at OpenAI’s first developer conference, on Nov. 6, 2023, in San Francisco. Microsoft has quit its seat on the board of OpenAI, saying its role is no longer needed because the ChatGPT maker has improved its governance since being roiled by boardroom chaos last year. In a letter sent on Tuesday, July 9, 2024, Microsoft confirmed it was resigning, “effective immediately,” from its role as an observer on the board. (AP Photo/Barbara Ortutay, File)

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Microsoft has relinquished its seat on the board of OpenAI, saying its participation is no longer needed because the ChatGPT maker has improved its governance since being roiled by boardroom chaos last year.

In a Tuesday letter, Microsoft confirmed it was resigning, “effective immediately,” from its role as an observer on the artificial intelligence company’s board.

“We appreciate the support shown by OpenAI leadership and the OpenAI board as we made this decision,” the letter said.

The surprise departure comes amid intensifying scrutiny from antitrust regulators of the powerful AI partnership. Microsoft has reportedly invested $13 billion in OpenAI.

European Union regulators said last month that they would take a fresh look at the partnership under the 27-nation bloc’s antitrust rules, while the U.S. Federal Trade Commission and Britain’s competition watchdog have also been examining the pact.

Microsoft took the board seat following a power struggle in which OpenAI CEO Sam Altman was fired, then quickly reinstated, while the board members behind the ouster were pushed out.

“Over the past eight months we have witnessed significant progress by the newly formed board and are confident in the company’s direction,” Microsoft said in its letter. “Given all of this we no longer believe our limited role as an observer is necessary.”

With Microsoft’s departure, OpenAI will no longer have observer seats on its board.

“We are grateful to Microsoft for voicing confidence in the Board and the direction of the company, and we look forward to continuing our successful partnership,” OpenAI said in a statement.

It’s not hard to conclude that Microsoft’s decision to ditch the board seat was heavily influenced by rising scrutiny of big technology companies and their links with AI startups, said Alex Haffner, a competition partner at U.K. law firm Fladgate.

“It is clear that regulators are very much focused on the complex web of inter-relationships that Big Tech has created with AI providers, hence the need for Microsoft and others to carefully consider how they structure these arrangements going forward,” he said.

OpenAI said it would take a new approach to “informing and engaging key strategic partners” such as Microsoft and Apple and investors such as Thrive Capital and Khosla Ventures, with regular meetings to update stakeholders on progress and ensure stronger collaboration on safety and security.

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A Hacker Stole OpenAI Secrets, Raising Fears That China Could, Too

A security breach at the maker of ChatGPT last year revealed internal discussions among researchers and other employees, but not the code behind OpenAI’s systems.

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By Cade Metz

Reporting from San Francisco

Early last year, a hacker gained access to the internal messaging systems of OpenAI, the maker of ChatGPT, and stole details about the design of the company’s A.I. technologies.

The hacker lifted details from discussions in an online forum where employees talked about OpenAI’s latest technologies, according to two people familiar with the incident, but did not get into the systems where the company houses and builds its artificial intelligence.

OpenAI executives revealed the incident to employees during an all-hands meeting at the company’s San Francisco offices in April 2023 and informed its board of directors, according to the two people, who discussed sensitive information about the company on the condition of anonymity.

But the executives decided not to share the news publicly because no information about customers or partners had been stolen, the two people said. The executives did not consider the incident a threat to national security because they believed the hacker was a private individual with no known ties to a foreign government. The company did not inform the F.B.I. or anyone else in law enforcement.

For some OpenAI employees, the news raised fears that foreign adversaries such as China could steal A.I. technology that — while now mostly a work and research tool — could eventually endanger U.S. national security. It also led to questions about how seriously OpenAI was treating security, and exposed fractures inside the company about the risks of artificial intelligence.

After the breach, Leopold Aschenbrenner, an OpenAI technical program manager focused on ensuring that future A.I. technologies do not cause serious harm, sent a memo to OpenAI’s board of directors, arguing that the company was not doing enough to prevent the Chinese government and other foreign adversaries from stealing its secrets.

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